


oh my darling, near the water

by thelandofnothing



Series: on the sea (a stormlands collection) [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Four Years Later..., Post Season 8 Canon, Storm’s End, angry! gendry, but with 100 percent book characterisation, cos i don’t associate with the show, cos my son is valid, does he look like a doormat to you???, give my son FEELINGS pls, i also love my gal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23653504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelandofnothing/pseuds/thelandofnothing
Summary: when arya returns four years later, a certain lord is reluctant to greet her like an old friend
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: on the sea (a stormlands collection) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724404
Comments: 66
Kudos: 233





	oh my darling, near the water

**Author's Note:**

> fic title: sagrad Прекрасный - grimes (but i totally wrote this to ∆∆∆∆Rasik∆∆∆∆ by grimes because it gives off such an eerie feeling) 
> 
> this is just a little piece i needed to get out, i hope y'all like it!

_**-Storm's End-** _

It rains the night Arya trails down the rocky path to the shore, where they say the Smith Lord spends his evenings; sitting on the beach, listening to the waves as the tide comes in and the birds as they call.

The wind whips her hair, sending the unruly mess thrashing about her face. Her sleeveless jerkin offers little to no protection from the ocean’s breath, but it is refreshing to feel such fresh air against her bare skin. 

She can see him, donning only light breeches and a cotton shirt, soaked through by the sea spray. Yet he is unmoving, sitting on the sand with his forearms resting on his knees. 

The sun sinks above the horizon, bathing the beach in lilac and blood orange. 

Her boots meet the wet sand, and she sinks a little with each step towards him, following the trail of footprints that lead to his hulking frame. She never learns what he was searching for amongst the crashing waves and the tang of salt but the sight of him is enough to calm her racing heart. She walks and walks until she is standing by his side and she sits herself down, mirroring his position and turning her eyes to the brutality of the ocean. She feels the saltwater lick her face, catching the scars and rivets that years have given her. 

“Do you think the Gods are watching us?” she asks the sky and Gendry does not stiffen. 

“Perhaps,” his answer is curt, full of anger that she knows all too well. 

It is brewing in his chest, a million questions that deserve just answers. 

“How do you tell when the next storm is coming?” she asks him.

“The wind shifts direction,” he tells her. “It becomes cooler and the clouds,” he points to the clear sky. “They grow dark and collect together.” 

They distil into silence again and the night grows nearer, chasing away the last slivers of the sun. 

“I thought you went West,” he says, in a disdainful tone that sends shivers down her spine. 

“West,” she says, placing a palm on the wet sand. “Is East.”

He runs a hand through his hair, and she fights to urge to reach and cup his cheek, to force his eyes to meet hers. But all she can do is look at his side profile as he refuses to move his head from the view of the ocean. 

He seems to look surprised, like everyone who learns the truth from her mouth but before she can comment further, he goes back to his brooding. 

“The maesters of Oldtown would appreciate that.” 

The bite of his words hits her much harder than she anticipates, and the feeling is like choking on saltwater, feeling it burn down her oesophagus.

_Yet I am here, in Storm's End._

“You’re angry,” she observes, _like a storm, like clouds growing dark and collecting together._

He snorts, rather ungracefully but it is a noise so reminiscent of their years together that she cannot help but cling to nostalgia. 

“Yes, angry, that’s the word for it,” he tells her in a tone of mockery. 

She hates how quiet he becomes; how cold his glare is and how tight his body is around her. On the road, she was the only one who could touch him without him flinching, without hostile looks and thrashing eyes. Now he looks as though he couldn’t wish to be further from her. She feels newfound fire grow in her belly. 

“Well, be angry. I’m not a ghost,” she tells him and feels a warm fat tear slip down her cheek. “I’m not going to disappear into ashes. Look at me.” 

He refuses. 

“Gendry, please,” she pleads, her eyes beginning to water. “ _Look at me._ Tell me how angry you are. _”_

He is grown, a man of twenty and seven, his beard dark and his eyes sparkling even in the growing dark. She left him four years ago, in the darkness of Winterfell when her heart was still black and her blood boiling and bubbling with unbidden rage. How could a girl like that love a man who was the epitome of love, of trust and of utmost security? 

_Of family._

Even now as she tries to coax the bull out of him, he stands firm, undesired to rain Hells upon her no matter how perturbing the hurt must be. 

“If I do, my heart will break again,” he whispers, and she can barely hear him like a breath against the violence of nature. 

_No,_ she wants to tell him, to drag him away from the pain and hurt her selfishness caused him. How willing she is to be loved and how much love she has, to give in return. How she wants to nurture and be nurtured. To care and be cared for. To fight demons that plague her nights with someone in her corner. 

“I could be angry,” he says as if the prospect was worth considering. “I could be fuckin’ livid, is that what you’re asking? Because it makes sense?”

She looked at her lap. 

“I pretended you died,” he tells her suddenly, and she listens. “I told myself that your ship met the rocks and you all perished; Stark sails and all. But I could never lie to myself because Arya Stark always had Death in the palm of her hand. I saw you evade Death too many times to take myself seriously.”

_Her lover is the Stranger,_ a sailor had said about her. 

“Then I actually started dreaming of you dying,” he says and her heart clenches. “That you were ripped to shreds by a swarm of wights, crushed under a rock in King’s Landing, slaughtered by the Freys.” 

He toys with a shell, the little white thing miniature in his large hands. 

“Each night, I’d wake, trying to catch my breath and I could nothing about it; stuck there paralysed by a phantom.” 

She wishes none of her life happened the way it did, she wished she took Gendry’s offer and they ran off into the woods or took a boat to Essos to escape everyone that meant to hurt them. She wishes her blood didn’t boil with revenge, she wishes she never stuck Needle so easily into the stable boy’s gut, wished it never sent a rush of pleasure down to her toes. 

But from the look on his face, she is much too late to be dreaming about what could have been. For she was just like Sansa, where songs were tales, no less glamorised than the horror of the world. She had looked love in the face and turned the other cheek. 

“I learnt…” he lets out a laugh. “I didn’t know you, not at all, did I? Who was I? To propose marriage to you like that?” 

“You do,” she assured him and _then_ he turns to look at her, his blue eyes wavering like rippling waters. “Know me, the real me.” 

“I don’t know about anything before—” 

_I told you everything, everything that made me._

“I’m not the girl who got these scars,” she tells him, watching his eyes flicker to her belly where he knows the skin is marred with the terror of a past, he never witnessed. One she tried so hard to lock up from everyone. “And the girl that left you…” 

_Was too hellbent on revenge she could not serve._

He looks away and scoffs. 

“There’s no excuse for running away,” he tells her. 

“But I—” 

“I don’t care how much you suddenly wanted to sail the seas, you never told me how obsessed you were with the ‘West of Westeros’ a day of your life. You were a coward. I was right there the day of the trial, all you had to say was goodbye.” 

She looks at him as he stares at her, gauging her reaction as his words. 

“Goodbye,” he murmurs again. “That’s it, not even as a… Whatever we were. Just as your friend.” 

_Friend._

The word sounds bitter in his mouth.

“Arya, look,” he sighs. “If you’ve come here just to torment me than you most likely could have done it through a raven. Just get on with it and tell me why the fuck you’re here.” 

She looks at him, her heart pounding in her chest. 

_The girl who killed the Night King is quivering like a maid in front of a man._

Not any man, her closest friend. Her truest one and…

_Say it, you craven._

“I love you,” she tells him, and his brows furrow. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to tell you before I left but I do.” 

He goes silent again and her insides turn in panic. 

“And you have every right to hate me,” she tells him. “I’m not asking for you to forgive me.” 

_But maybe I should._

He peers at her. The sun was setting now, and a shroud of twilight would fall upon them. 

“For true?” he asks, testing out the words. She knows she is hard to trust; her tongue had spilt lies like milk through the years. “You truly still—"

“For as true as you said that night,” she cuts him off and he stares at her as if he were a child.

She closes her eyes and tries to conjure the memory of trees and the metallic tang in her mouth of a fresh kill. Anything more serene than the drumming of her heart against her chest. 

“I shouldn’t have asked you,” he tells her, guilt permeating his tone in a way that breaks the silence and her spiralling mind. “It wasn’t like me, and it wasn’t fair for you.” 

“I hurt you still,” she whispers. “I left twice, without a word.” 

He looks at her incredulously. 

“I was always selfish,” she laughs humourlessly. “You know that. But then… I don’t even know what I was when we met again. A figment of who I was. A fool? A suicidal fool, I think. You’re allowed to agree.”

“I think everyone thought you were,” he says seriously, and _Gods_ she wishes he would just laugh, or do something that was a figment of the Gendry she used to know. “A fool, a suicidal one.”

He takes a deep breath in. 

“But you aren’t selfish,” he says, and she looks at him, with disbelief written on her face. “You never have been.” 

_Do you still trust me?_ she dares to ask. 

So she poises the question with her eyes, begging him for an answer. 

When he stares back, she can swear there’s a drop of warmth in the pit of his cerulean gaze. She takes the invitation to move closer, to keep looking at his weatherworn face and observe all the little nicks that have appeared amongst its canvas. She wants to learn the new him too, wants to learn why his eyes narrowed the way they did or what happened to cause the scar that hooked through his eyebrow, skirting close to his eye. 

But instead of asking questions, she moves unprompted, to lay her head against his shoulder.

For a moment, she thinks he might shrug her off with disgust but instead, he presses his cheek to the crown of her skull. 

“Arya?” he says, his words lost in the sound of breaking waves. 

“Hmm?” 

“I—” 

She lets him clear his throat. 

“I can swear and let steam come out my ears at your idiocy another time,” he tells her, and she chuckles. “But you’ll always have a bed here, a meal to fill your belly… So… Why don’t you stay?” 

She breathes in his scent of pine, metal and smoke, and she is transported to the nights they spent on the road, curled up against each other. 

_Just for the night,_ she can hear on his breath. _For you’ll be gone in the morning._

But she wouldn’t. Not today, not tomorrow. 

“Okay.” 


End file.
